


Valley of Fire

by Kyla_Wren



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universes, DrummerWolf, F/M, Portals, blue-haired Amanda, doppelgangers, priest brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-04 01:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15830745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyla_Wren/pseuds/Kyla_Wren
Summary: or, Fear and Loathing in Alternate UniversesSee everything, go anywhere.Amanda’s persistent visions of an invisible girl lead Team Jacket and the Rowdy 3 to Nevada.Desert roads, neon lights, and other dimensions await.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank you intricatecakes for beta-ing :)

**Savannah, GA**

Vogel was watching cartoons on the motel’s old tv, where the images looked like they had been through the wash too many times. He didn’t mind, laying on his stomach and eating candy in a mechanical way while kicking his feet. Gripps sat behind him, switching to the nature channel during commercials. Cross stood in the open doorway, watching the street below through the railing and drinking a Swamp Fox IPA.

On the other bed Amanda leaned back on Martin’s chest, listening to him read her passages from _The Martian Chronicles_. He held the dog-eared book fanned out close to his face, following the text over the top of his glasses. Books tended to cycle in and out of the blonde Rowdy's possession. Right now a steady stream of retro sci-fi could be found in the van glove compartment or in front of him on evenings like this. His right arm was draped around her ribcage, possessive and warm.

Amanda tried and failed to suppress a yawn. Martin was extra comfortable to lie on, having finally been persuaded to wear soft shorts and an unzipped black hoodie when they planned on sleeping indoors.

The Rowdies didn’t care about comfortable. They _did_ care about Amanda - enough to suffer through semi-regular bathing and having a second set of softer clothes to wear when there was a chance she would fall asleep on or near them. She thought it was sweet.

Martin’s voice sang into her ear, quiet enough to not compete with Vogel’s show, loud enough to weave into the texture of the room. Another night on the road with the boys. 

Ray Bradbury’s words traveled through seventy years to spill like diamonds from the mouth of a mohawked vampire, whispering to his girlfriend in the Savannah night:

_Tomás stared at the stranger. ‘And if I am real, then you must be dead.’_  
_‘No, you!’_  
_‘A ghost!’_  
_‘A phantom!’_  
_They pointed at each other, with starlight burning in their limbs like daggers and icicles and fireflies, and then fell to judging their limbs again, each finding himself intact, hot, excited, stunned, awed, and the other, ah yes, that other over there, unreal, a ghostly prism flashing the accumulated light of distant worlds.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

“Dirk, did you eat this yogurt?” 

Todd was facing the office fridge, absorbed in a half-empty container and unrolling the foil top with caution.

“Why?” His partner in holistic detection peeked around the corner, taking a swig of pink smoothie.

“It’s expired by like, two months.”

Todd gazed into the yogurt void and the void gazed back, or would be able to in about two days when it evolved working eyeballs. Dirk jettisoned his mouthful back into the glass and cleared his throat, walking into the kitchen and making a sweeping gesture to distract while he hid the smoothie behind the microwave.

Todd was in no danger of paying attention. He was doing that thing with the fixed stare that drove Dirk crazy. The only thing that could snap him out of this state was-

The muted sound of a phone ringing through denim made Todd jump. He pulled his phone out with a clumsy motion while shoving the yogurt back into the fridge.

 _Amanda,_ Dirk thought, the same moment that Todd answered.

“Amanda!” he cried.

Dirk smiled and tapped his own nose.

“HEY BRO,” yelled a voice on the line that could be distinguished from all the way across the room. It was not Todd’s sister.

“Amanda? Are you there? Uh...”

There was muffled grumbling.

“Right, Vogel. Hi Vogel. Can I speak to my sister, please? Thanks.”

Todd walked out of the kitchen and over to his desk in their main office space. Dirk followed, slipping into his rolly chair and scooting after him on fun little wheels.

“Hey! It’s good to hear your voice. How are things?”

Dirk slid right up next to his partner, extending his head as close to the receiver as possible. Todd noticed him and swiveled his own chair to move farther away.

“Mmhm, good. How’s the magic stuff going?”

Dirk rolled around to his other side, undefeated. Todd reached out and gave him a gentle shove.

“Ok, yes, how’s... Martin...” He rolled his eyes and smiled.

Dirk made a frustrated noise and leaned forward on his hands.

“Dirk says hi,” Todd capitulated, looking over as if to say _Happy now?_

Dirk grinned and nodded, happy indeed.

Todd’s face grew serious, focused on his sister’s words.

“Oh, really? Okay. Have they been bad? Shit…”

“Oh, for the love of-” Dirk reached over and snatched the phone, pressing the speaker button. “Amanda, I couldn’t stand it anymore. Are you okay? What are talking to Todd about?”

“Dirk! Boundaries!” his partner snapped, not for the first time.

“Sorry, sorry! I just couldn’t help it...”

Amanda’s laughter crackled over the line and Dirk relaxed. 

“Hi Dirk. It’s nothing. I was just telling Todd that I’ve been having some visions. Okay, like, a _ton_ of visions, and they’re telling me to find someone. I’m thinking it has to be the next Blackwing subject.”

“Ooo, let’s hope they’re a little less murder-y this time.”

“Do you know where they are?” Todd crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“Nevada. We’re like, 95% sure about that.”

“‘We’?”

“I’ve been consulting with the boys. They’ve been all over the country, they can recognize different landscapes better than I can. I’m not always lucky enough to see a road sign in these things.”

“How are the attacks?” Todd chewed his lip. “You said you’ve been having a lot.”

She grunted. “Yeah. Not great. They’ve been pretty… creative.”

 

**24 Hours Earlier**

Amanda stared into the mirror in the motel bathroom. She felt off-kilter, tired. Rubbing her eyes, she looked up again to be met with red tears smearing her cheeks.

Blood?

She looked down at her hands, wet and stained like Lady Macbeth. She was half-sure it was a hallucination, but her eyes were burning and weeping and it was so alarming she felt herself getting faint.

 _That’s a new one,_ she thought as she toppled over. She took most of the objects on the sink down with her.

There was a road, dipping and rising through crags of vivid red-orange rock under a sky of the most unadulterated blue. A stretch of red hot nothing, the ghost feel of a martian landscape. Stars that rearranged themselves above faster than she could track. Ink on skin, bleeding and morphing into symbols that coalesced into a hexagon and an orbiting sun. Neon light pooled on a black tar street. The images started to fly by, doubling, tripling, far too quick for her to understand, becoming a blur of color and sound - an empty wind blowing louder and louder, drowning out voices and traffic. Amanda sat up panting, clutching her ears.

“Shit,” she gasped when she was able. “The vision was as bad as the attack.”

Martin was crouched on the ground with her, holding her shoulder and peering into her eyes with concern. The other Rowdies circled around, hunched over and checking her with anxious faces.

“Lasted longer than usual,” Martin muttered, as Cross pushed her head to the side to look inside her ear. Vogel chewed on a fingernail.

“I’m ok,” she closed her eyes and offered a weak smile. “Hey, my eyes aren’t bleeding, right?”

She opened them to Martin’s serious face, even closer. 

“No,” he said. The little word carried a lot of weight.

She looked down at her fingers. Black, smeared with tears and eyeshadow. That was a relief.

“All right. I’m gonna take a shower. Let’s, uh, order pizza?”

Vogel leapt up with a crow of pure delight. Cross and Gripps followed him, ready to intervene to prevent an order with every available topping. Martin stayed, moving to help her when she started to stand up.

“Three in three days.”

“I know. It’s a lot. Hasn’t been this bad in a while.” 

“What did you see?” he said, soft and low, moving her hair out of her eyes.

“I’m not sure. It almost looked like another freakin’ planet. Somewhere I’ve never been before.”

He nodded, eternally patient. 

“Think we’re gonna be moving on again?”

“Yeah... as soon as I figure out where. Ugh. It’s so hard to think afterwards. Everything feels muddled.” 

Amanda leaned over, raising herself on her toes to meet his height and brush his lips with hers. He took the chance to almost topple her over again, this time holding her securely in place. Martin always made kisses deeper and longer than she planned. She couldn’t say it bothered her.

He pulled away only to wrap her in a hug, breathing in the scent of her neck.

“How are you feeling?” 

“Kinda dizzy,” she admitted. “I think I wanna rinse off and go lay down.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She turned on the water and Martin retrieved his clippers from the floor without a word. He started to shave the sides of his head while she got undressed, the buzzing sound blending with the patter of the water.

From the other room came a muted quarrel, the only distinct words being Vogel’s cry of _Anchovies!_ and Cross’ answering _Fuck no_.

She tried to think more while she washed her hair, slowing down the slideshow of memories as best she could. Something about the _stars_ had looked wrong. She combed her fingers through the soap-laden waves, watching foam run off and race to the drain.

There had been a girl in there, at least once, though maybe a dozen times. Her face had stayed fixed in place while light and shadows moved across it and backdrops changed behind her. It was the same girl that had surfaced in so many of her visions lately. Dark skin, honeyed curls, intense eyes that stare without blinking. At least one of the wrong-feeling night skies had been behind her. And so many lights. Pink, red, orange... ghost blue, the color of the energy the Rowdies drank from her.

“Neon...”

“Hm?” The buzzing cut out.

“Where can you find a ton of neon light?”

Martin’s hand reached around the curtain, chipped black polish and rings glinting, and pulled it aside just enough to show him rubbing his mohawk and face with a towel.

“Shanghai.”

“Try more local,” Amanda blinked water out of her eyelashes and reached out to touch his fresh-sheared head. She always loved how it felt, like a pit bull’s coat.

“Times Square. Miami. Vegas.” Martin leaned into her touch. “You’re wet.”

“Las Vegas!” she grinned and clapped her hands together. Martin dodged the spray.

“Vegas, huh?” Her boyfriend pulled the curtain aside again. His eyes were glowing. “Boys’re gonna love this.”

**Now**

The call between Amanda and Todd ended. The associated screens in the Blackwing tech room went dark.

Ken reached up and took off his headset with slow movements, giving Priest a significant look.

“You’re a clever guy, tappin’ his phone” Priest drawled. “They don’t just chat about visits home, the family dog, etcetera. They get right down to it.”

“They do.”

Ken opened a laptop at his right and pulled up his database, casting the matrix of Blackwing image codes onto the bigger monitors in front of them. The symbols spun in lazy circles, waiting. Incubus. Icarus. Marzanna. Lamia. Moloch. These were lit - active and accounted for, if not all contained. The rest were hazy, a paler shade of grey.

“Ok, from Miss Brotzman’s description, she’s having visions of a woman,” Ken made a few keystrokes and half of the icons vanished. “Young woman, so someone who would have been a teen or so during the original program. Dark skin, dark eyes.”

Ken entered some possible hexadecimal color codes. With each descriptor the pool of icons shrank, until a single image turned on its axis. Ken snapped his fingers and looked up with a grin.

“Project Wraith.”

Priest looked suitably impressed, if not surprised. Supervisor Adams was a tech guy first and foremost.

“How much do you know about her?” Ken asked, already pulling up the file.

Priest scoffed and put a toothpick in his mouth. “Little Jasmine Wright? Not enough. Riggins never let me near her. Said she wasn’t no trouble. Always was too soft on ‘em.”

Ken ignored the prickle of discomfort in his shoulders. Lucky for him, he was well-practiced at ignoring his own instincts.

“Looks like I’m going to have to do some reading tonight. I see she’s, ah, invisible,” he scrolled down the project summary page. “Invisible at will. Ha! Now _this_ is a challenge. A woman who can disappear… If we can find her, the key will be convincing her that there’s a reason to stay with us.”

“Hm.”

“We do have things to offer. Safety… understanding… it’s not that unattractive of a proposition, if we frame it right.”

“What we really need is to get there before the little Scooby-Doo gang does.”

Ken raised a finger and tapped the air. “Not necessarily. We need to let them do the work for us. They can chase Jasmine Wright until she gets tired. Then we’ll be there to-”

“Offer our friendship,” Priest twitched. He snapped the toothpick between his teeth. “Las Vegas is a big city. Lots of places to hide.”

“We can’t track the van,” Ken frowned, brushing aside his eternal confusion as to why the Project Incubus vehicle was impervious to bugging, tracking, drones, and satellites. It had no signature except for the chaos it left in its wake when the Rowdy 3 were being careless. “...But we _can_ track Project Incubus.”

Priest snickered. “How are you going to get good ol’ Svlad Cjelli involved?”

Supervisor Adams cracked his knuckles. “We’ll have to hire a private detective.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again intricatecakes for beta-ing!

It took three days to get from Savannah to Las Vegas.

Martin could have done it in two, and said as much (a low grumble in her ear, more preening than complaint) but it made Amanda and the boys crazy to sit still for so long.

The pace was set by her visions, which came faster and harder than ever before. After weeks of rare attacks and lazy, languid premonitions that played like poetry, the Universe was hell-bent on getting the message across. Amanda had to find this girl, or-

Or what, exactly? The visions never said. They weren’t threats. Her only fear was that they would never stop.

One in Atlanta. One outside of Birmingham. Two between Memphis and Oklahoma City. One while leaving Albuquerque, and one right before Flagstaff. Amanda was wrecked, wild-eyed and sweating. The attacks beforehand were scary and painful, just like always. The visions themselves were car crashes of images and noise.

“They keep showing me the same thing now,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the window. “I get it already. That girl. Video rental store. Vegas. Desert. Jesus, I feel like I could draw you a map of that city and I’ve never been there before.”

Martin reached over and rubbed his thumb over her collarbone. The only outward indication that he was stressed was their MPH, which was hitting the upper limit of the van’s speedometer.

“We’ll be there soon, Drummer girl.” He put yet another cigarette between his teeth and lit it with the end of his last one. “We’ll find her.”

The Rowdies were keyed up. Feeding so many times in a row made them crackle with electricity, made the whites of their eyes glow with subtle blue. They were ready to  _ fight _ , to howl, to race, pent up like a pack of dogs held at the starting gate, shivering with anticipation.

Amanda was wrung out, feeling the keen absence of all the energy she had given them. The radio was pumping with the beat of a heart. She saw the sky outside get wider and deeper, filling the window and brightening until it matched the one in her visions. She fell asleep or fainted. It was getting harder to tell the difference.

She woke up when they were already in Vegas, long past the famous sign or the main strip. They were weaving through the back streets, waiting for her.

“We’re close,” she said, in the odd tones of someone who speaks before they fully wake.

“Good. We don’t know what trail to follow,” Martin said, voice clipped. “This city’s lit up like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, I believe it.” She blinked, gazing out the window. Even in daylight, outside was awash with all things garish. Reality felt thin.

What?

She shook herself. Still dreaming, it seemed. 

“Try going left here,” she said, recognizing the street. In her visions the van zipped through these like a circuit board. “And a right after two lights.” 

 

They made it to their destination and climbed out, feeling dazzled and exposed.The air was dry. The sun was hot, hotter than was polite or reasonable. In front of them was a squat building, painted red over the cement blocks. A yellow sign shimmered above the door. 

Sin City Video.

“Whoa. Is this place, like, rated M?” Vogel waggled his eyebrows from over Amanda’s shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s… well, I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s the place, anyhow.”

Martin nodded at her. They didn’t have to exchange words to know that he would stand guard at the door. He leaned against the wall and drew a switchblade from his pocket to spin. Amanda recognized it as one from the biker gang in New Orleans. Knowing Martin, using it as a weapon would never cross his mind. He liked it because it kept his hands busy. If a fight happened he was much more in favor of blunt force trauma.

She stepped inside with the boys and phased into another world, heralded by the chime of a bell.

“How does a place like this stay in business?” Amanda wondered aloud. Even the Rowdies, perpetually ten years behind in all technology, enjoyed borrowing her phone to watch Netflix from time to time. None of them ever  _ rented videos. _   
  
The rows of dvds were set close together, dark tunnels of scuffed plastic cases and loud fonts. It wasn’t like the rental stores of Amanda’s childhood, full of basic comedies and summer action hits - no, this place had a sheen of weirdness that only increased as you examined it. Anime from the 80s, every B horror flick you didn’t want to imagine, every Talking Heads concert recording, bootleg Bollywood thrillers with home-printed covers, and a handwritten sign under “H” denoting the hentai section. The walls were covered with strips of neon lights, bathing the carpeted cave in a rainbow glow. Black Honey’s  _ Spinning Wheel _ was playing on the speakers.   
  
“Feels Like We’re Gonna Get Murdered!” Gripps said, cheerfully summing up the atmosphere.   
  
“By a clown...” Vogel hooked his finger through Amanda’s backpack in an unconscious display of nerves.

“Sweet, they got  _ Vanishing Point _ .” Cross was already a few rows behind, hands full of disk cases.

“If you like grindhouse flicks, we got  _ Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill _ too,” came a bored voice from the back.

Hunched over a counter by the register was a girl reading an issue of Total Film and holding a forgotten lollipop. Her jacket was studded with hundreds of spikes, giving her the look of a hedgehog that didn’t want to be interrupted.

She wasn’t looking up yet, but Amanda knew her face.  _ When you see a person a hundred times in your brain over and over like thunderclaps, you feel like you’ve already met. _

The girl turned a page with two long acrylic nails and looked up, leveling a stare at Amanda. She put the lollipop between her black-painted lips without blinking.

“Hey,” Amanda gave her what felt like a stupid smile and a little wave.

“Need help finding something?” she answered in a flat tone.

“Yeah. We’re looking for someone. Do you know anyone who… used to be in a government program?” she winced. This talking part was not something she had rehearsed beforehand. They had been so worried about finding her that Amanda kind of forgot to develop a pitch.

“Like the girl scouts?” the clerk said around her lollipop.

“Like, someone with a code name? Special ‘abilities’? Ugh, I can’t play this game. Do you have any weird, funky powers?” Amanda wiggled her hands, feeling her patience melt.

“What the hell?”

“Okay. I'm really screwing this up, sorry. One moment?” She held out her fingers to indicate that only a teensy bit of time was needed and turned back to the Rowdy 3.

“I'm thinking this is going terribly,” she muttered.

The boys grunted, unwilling to criticize.

“I should have let Dirk talk to her first. Or one of you guys.”

Vogel, Gripps, and Cross shook their heads in vigorous disagreement.

“We Do Not Have The Charisma!”

“That's  _ so  _ not true.”

“That's just ‘cause we love you, Boss.”

“Hey, where's the cute girl going?” Cross frowned, eyes following the store clerk as she walked around the counter.

She vanished in front of the register.

While the boys yelled and squared up, eyes darting into every corner, Amanda felt a strange jolt. Something tugged at her like another sense. She felt a pang that echoed hunger but came from inside her head. Her eyelids fell and rose again, her vision splintering like a spider’s. She could still see the girl in the spiked jacket. Her image was faded and blinking, glitching like a broken video game as she moved across the store.

“Hey!” she cried out, moving towards the departing girl without a plan.

Martin was startled when Amanda burst out of the store behind him, making the electronic bell whine. The girl was blinking away down the sidewalk, throwing aggravated glances behind her and getting fainter every time she… did something. Dodged, somehow. It was making Amanda’s eyes hurt.

“Can you see her?” she dug the heels of her hands into her temples.

“No,” he caught her as she leaned.

She gritted her teeth. “She’s gone, now. Shit. I really bungled that.”

“S’okay. You found her, didn’t you? She’ll be back.”

The other Rowdies emerged, looking confused.

“Why’d you run, Boss? Did you see her?”

“Yeah. She was…”  _ sputtering, seizing, _ “Half-way here. God, it’s hot, isn’t it?”

“It’s frying,” Cross agreed. He looked back into the store, wistful. “Think she’d mind if we borrowed a few dvds? Just for the night.”

“Think that’s what the locals call lootin’,” Martin said, with a smirk. “Go for it.”

He helped an overheated Amanda out of her leather jacket and felt the phone buzz in her pocket. He fished it out.

“Who is it?” she asked, re-tying her ponytail and fanning herself with her tank top.

The blonde Rowdy unlocked it with a slightly awkward swipe. As far as Martin was concerned, the phone was a bad combo of breakable and important.

“Your brother,” he muttered. “He’s in Vegas.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

  
  


They met Todd and Dirk in a Mexican restaurant across town where the city lights were dimmer and the dust blew.

“Where’s Farah?” she asked, as Dirk leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“Helping Hobbes with a case,” Todd shrugged and gave her his sweetest smile. “Guess she’s been re-deputized or something.”

The three of them sat in a booth with a blue checkered tablecloth and chili-pepper light strings. The Rowdy 3 lined up at the bar, drinking pints of beer and spooking the regulars.  _ You know, the usual. _

“She’s like the only adult in this group.” Amanda looked up at them and raised her eyebrows. “And that’s fully including me.”

Todd nodded in total agreement as Dirk frowned.

“Psh. We’ll muddle through. It has all been going very well so far!”

“What’s been going well?”

“Our case! It’s another missing person. We seem to draw a lot of that, don’t we?”

Dirk took out his wallet and flipped through it.

“A few days ago our services were engaged by a woman looking for her long-lost niece. One 'Jasmine Wright’, last seen heading towards Nevada.”

“Fifteen years ago,” Todd added, with a roll of his eyes.

Dirk produced a photo of an unsmiling teenage girl and placed it by Amanda’s plate of tacos.

Minus one spiked jacket, it looked awfully familiar.

“Oh shit,” she said, blinking.

“It seems pretty outrageous that our client never had any luck finding her in all this time. Still, she never had  _ us _ on the case before!”

“Dirk, this is  _ the girl _ . From my visions. We’ve seen her, we know where she works… she kinda maybe hates us…”

“Aw man, already?” Todd looked hurt.

“It was my bad. You know I suck at people. Dirk should go in there and make her want to join us. You know, holistically… or whatever.”

Todd picked up the photograph. “She looks kind of friendly.”

“Yeah, that’s got to be an old photo.”

Her brother excused himself to use the restroom, giving the Rowdy 3 a wide berth as he passed.

“Amanda,” Dirk leaned forward, conspiratorial in Todd’s absence. “How are things going with Mr. Sexy-Bad-Posture?”

She had to process that for a moment before she understood him.

Amanda looked over at Martin. He was swiveled on his barstool, facing her and leaning back to hear the conversation of his brothers. He caught her eye and winked. An embarrassing little thrill went through her, same as it always did. 

“It’s good,” she whispered back. “Really good.”

Dirk looked delighted to the roots of his sunny soul, which was kind of him - considering that Martin & Co. had made a decade’s work out of following him and administering jump scares. She guessed that he was relieved their attention was now focused on her alone.

He patted her arm. “Splendid. Everything really is working out for the best, isn’t it?”

  
  


The next morning saw the Rowdy 3 staking out Sin City Video.

Not that the Oh No van was anywhere near subtle enough for such an operation. They were parked a good distance away from the store, watching the entrance through a pair of military-issued binoculars that belonged to Farah before Dirk commandeered them for the Nevada mission.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the entire pack was focused on the video store. Amanda was, for sure. Martin was smoking and only watching Amanda, pretending to look out the front window whenever she checked. The other three boys were having a contest to see who could do the best impression of Dirk*. 

(*This revealed that none of them had any idea how to put on a British accent - Gripps came closest with a vague imitation of a manic Victorian violet seller.)

The real Dirk was inside the store with Todd, returning the three 1960s Godzilla movies and  _ An American Werewolf in London _ that Cross had marathoned all night. He hoped to broach the subject of Jasmine’s powers and their shared past with grace and delicacy.

The Rowdy 3 couldn’t see from outside, down the street, and inside the van, but it was going rather poorly.

“Shit. She just walked through the wall. She’s coming this way!” Amanda yelped, dropping the binoculars and startling everyone. There was no one in the street.

Without question, Martin revved the engine and peeled out. His eyes flicked back and forth from Amanda’s frantic motions to the (empty) road in front of him.

“Left! Left!”

All four of the guys squinted ahead. In Amanda’s splintering vision she could see Jasmine Wright getting on an orange moped and shooting off like a meteor. The moped was the same opacity as Jasmine - 90% of reality, Amanda estimated - which meant she must have picked it up in the Other Place.

She had started referring to it as the Other Place in her head yesterday, when she decided that Jasmine must be going somewhere that was not Here, but laid across the framework of Here like a colored gel on a stage light. When Amanda summoned up all of her strength she could see parts of it, flickering and faint.

Jasmine slipped a helmet over her curls and turned to stare down the van.  _ It must look the same from her perspective, _ Amanda thought. Not altogether there - a ghost van.

With a jerking motion that betrayed irritation, Jasmine made a hard turn on her moped. She lost another grade of opacity, slipping into a Third Place and taking on a shimmering gold color. Amanda’s eyes hurt to look at her.

In the very much here and now, the Oh No van was barrelling down a street leading to the busiest part of town. Martin avoided every pedestrian and car with deft movements of the wheel, following a trail he couldn’t see or smell. The guys were screaming their heads off - a common enough occurrence.

Amanda growled in frustration as Jasmine accelerated into a Fourth Place and was now almost invisible. 

_ Hm _ .  _ The Invisible Girl. _ That phrase rang familiar. From a vision, maybe.

She thought about the pools in Wendimoor, where she had been able to tap into a bottomless well of pain and illumination and make brief contact with other worlds. Jasmine could be doing the same, moving herself between realities. If so, she was doing it with ridiculous ease.

Amanda narrowed her eyes. She could do this - she could follow Jasmine Wright into another dimension. She just needed to concentrate. 

That, and a water source.

Their target hurtled ahead, phasing through the crowds on the sidewalk. She was leading them close to the Bellagio, where the enormous fountain was spraying in exuberant jets.

Amanda looked at Martin and then back to the fountain. He raised his eyebrows at her, keeping his foot down on the accelerator. People jumped out of the way in front of them.

“Say the word, Drummer girl.”

She swallowed.

“Go.”

With spider’s vision she chose the path and opened the door. Around her she gathered the shimmering threads of her boys, of her brother, of Dirk, and  _ pulled _ them all along with her. Their resistance was like pulling balloons through a breeze.

As soon as their tires hit the water she moved them. It hurt. 

_ What doesn’t, these days? _

  
  
  


For the Rowdies, there was a curious sensation - like doing a barrel roll inside a very large spaceship while doing another one, in the opposite direction, inside a very small pickle jar.

Without any time passing they were parked on the other side of the fountain. Martin was resting his elbows on the steering wheel and gazing at her. His leg shook in time to the music on the radio, which sounded like it was now tuned to Vivaldi. In the backseat Vogel threw up without ceremony.

“Hold tight for a second,” Amanda said, looking at them all in turn and rubbing her face before popping the door open. “I’m just going to go outside and see what happened.”

Harsh sunlight made her squint. The noise of tourists and traffic bounced off familiar-shaped architecture. She shaded her eyes, looking around and then upwards.

“Okay. That’s a...  _ million _ foot tall billboard of Dirk,” she whispered to herself.

She was correct, plus or minus a few feet. It was one of those digital adverts that shimmered and moved, taking up the entire side of a large hotel. In a short repeating clip Dirk twirled around with a winning smile, releasing white doves from his tuxedo sleeve.

Looping cursive letters screamed into the sunlight:

_ Svlad Cjelli: The World’s Greatest Magician! _

Amanda slammed the back door shut behind her and whirled to face the Rowdy 3, eyes as wide as they could go. Her pupils dilated in the sudden dark.

“Guys, we are not in our dimension,” she hissed.

“But we  _ are _ in America, right?” Cross raised a finger from the shadows.

“Uh. I guess? Some version of it.”

“Right on.” He smiled, satisfied for the moment.

With an unpleasant jolt she remembered the missing members of their party.

“Oh my god. Todd. I pulled him and Dirk through the portal too. Don't ask me how, I just know that I did.” 

Amanda whipped out her phone. No service. No nothing. In fact, her phone seemed to be having trouble grappling with its own existence. The signals it sought came from satellites in another stratum of the universe. She took mercy on it and put on airplane mode.

She took a deep breath and looked up. The Rowdy 3 were watching, the way they always did when the stress rippled off her like this. It was an instant comfort to see their faces.

“I have to go back out there,” she said, both to them and to herself, trying to muster some pep. “I gotta find Dirk and Todd.”

“We’re ready,” Martin said. No doubts ever lived within him. Even in another reality.

They cracked open the back doors and let the desert air blow in - sand and heat and sparks of strangeness like electric confetti.


End file.
